Currently, as a recording medium, a camera integral-type recording and reproducing apparatus (hereinafter referred to as a video camera) adopting a disk-shaped recording medium (hereinafter referred to as a disk), such as a semiconductor memory card and DVD (Digital Versatile Disk), comes into the market. Such video cameras are manufactured featuring random access characteristics of the recording medium which magnetic tape cannot attain.
For example, the above-described video camera forms each file of a moving image, a still image and an audio concerning a taken scene and records the files in the disk or the like. The video camera directly can access to each file during reproduction to attain the easy and high-speed reproducing operation.
In the video camera using the disk as the recording medium, usually the scenes obtained during a period from recording start to recording stop are compressed and encoded in one video clip and converted into one file to be stored on the disk. Therefore, the disk stores the plurality of video clip files. Usually the video camera can reproduce all the recorded scenes by continuously reading out the plurality of video clip files on the disk. With reference to another reproducing mode, play list-reproducing function in which a user arbitrarily designates the video clip files to be reproduced and a sequence of the video clip files to perform simple editing has been also realized. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-175680 is already known as the prior art in which the play list reproduction is performed in the video camera.
The configuration of the above-described video camera will be reviewed. FIG. 8 is a view showing the configuration of a picture taking and recording system of a video camera 800 using the disk. The reference numeral 801 denotes a camera optical system which takes an object with proper focal distance and exposure by controlling driving systems such as a focus and an iris with a camera controller 805. The reference numeral 802 denotes an image pickup device which converts incident light into an electric signal by a CCD sensor or a CMOS sensor. The reference numeral 803 denotes a camera signal processing circuit which generates digital video data of a color video image after analog-to-digital conversion of the electric signal from the image pickup device. The reference numeral 804 denotes a video encoding circuit which compresses and encodes the digital video data. The reference numeral 807 denotes a file generation circuit which generates a video clip file including the compressed digital video data. The reference numeral 808 denotes an error correction coding circuit which adds parity data for performing error correction of the video clip file. The reference numeral 809 denotes a data modulation circuit which performs modulation coding such as a (1,7) RLL code and a trellis code in order to record the video clip file on the recording medium. The reference numeral 810 denotes a magnetic field modulation driver which drives a magnetic head 811 according to an input signal to apply a magnetic field onto a disk-shaped recording medium 813. The reference numeral 812 denotes an optical pickup which irradiates the recording medium 813 with a recording laser beam according to the input signal. The generated video clip file is recorded on the recording medium 813. A drive controller 816 controls operations of the optical pickup 812 and a motor 814 to perform drive control by outputting a control signal to a drive servo circuit 815 on a request from a system controller 817. Up to this point, the video camera using the disk shown in FIG. 8 is described.
However, in the conventional recording and reproducing apparatus such as the video camera using the disk, division or partial deletion of the video clip file itself recorded in a stream format is performed, in the case where clip editing, such as the division or the partial deletion of video clip which is of the moving image data file, is performed. Therefore, it is inconvenient because the clip editing provides no reversibility to the clip after the editing. Further, since rewriting of the stream data itself is required for after-recording editing of audio, there are various problems such as long processing time. With reference to the play list reproducing function included in the conventional video cameras, the play list reproducing function is an extent of the so-called program reproduction, and the sophisticated editing such that the reproducing operation or synchronization is controlled, while a plurality of contents are dealt with cannot be attained, so that the play list reproducing function is unsatisfying.